
Aieeeeeee!!!
Flee the spores! Flee while you can!!
Either that or fill the dishwasher with hops and malted barley. I think I'll flip a coin.
Malign fungal entities may be breeding and evolving in your dishwasher, boffins warn, saying that the deadly toadstool-esque kitchen triffid yeast creatures have already become almost unkillable and may soon mutate into frightful blobominations able to launch out their deadly spores to "colonise" unwary nearby humans with …
This article made me realise that my washing machine rubber seal may be suffering from a fungus problem!
I did a bit of research and apparently these are the recommended steps to remove it:
1. Obtain some distilled white vinegar or clear malt vinegar or citric acid. Henceforth called "acid".
2. Obtain some soda crystals or *bleach* detergent.
3. Do a highest possible temperature (preferably 90C) first full cycle maintenance wash (no laundry) after putting a cup of crystals/detergent in the tub and a cup of crystals/detergent in the washer drawer.
4. Do a highest possible temperature (preferably 90C) second full cycle maintenance wash by pouring the acid into the drawer at the start of the wash as water is being drawn and heated.
5. After both cycles have completed, open the washing machine door and check under the lip of the seal (hopefully it will be clean). Henceforth, ALWAYS leave the washing machine door permanently open unless its closed for a wash! If you remember nothing else, remember that!!!
If the problem is not eliminated using the steps above, grab a mask, rubber gloves and HG Mould Spray or some other rubber-safe black mould and mildew remover. The protection is important due to the fungus spores AND the Mould Spray's very powerful bleach ingredients.
If that still does not work, replace the washing machine's rubber seal.
Once a month, make it a habit to do a highest possible temperature wash cycle. This can be a normal wash or a maintenance wash.
Apparently, very high temperature wash cycles used to be normal, especially for towel washes, back in the old days before low temperature biological detergents and the ecological movement. This may be a reason why the fungus/mould problem has grown so widespread these days.
Of course, since fungi were found feeding on the radiation leaking from Chernobyl's abandoned reactors, it's hardly surprising they would eventually conquer the relatively favorable conditions of a puny dishwasher.
I wonder, since fungi are prone to engage in symbiotic relationships, how long it will take until they mingle with humans to produce a race of super-resistant, radiation-immune beings – who will no doubt proceed to exterminate the "inferiors" around them?
Burn all dishwashers! It's us or them!
I'm guessing here, but ...
The obvious question is whether the spores of the non-extremophile versions of these yeasts are omnipresent in everyday environments, in the same way that everyday green mould spores are? If so it suggests that our immune systems are protecting us against them on an everyday basis, and there's little cause for concern (unless you suffer from CF).
I'd also expect the varieties which mutate to enjoy the innards of a dishwasher, have traded tolerance of that environment for optimisation for non-extreme conditions (such as the insides of a human being). In that case we have less to fear from the ones living in dishwashers than their parent strains. Even if not so, tolerance of extreme heat, alkalinity, etc. won't create tolerance of antibiotic medicines. Be extremely wary of the dishwasher used on petri dishes in a path lab, though!
Indeed - if the stuff is everywhere, and hardly ever harms healthy humans, is it actually any more likely to mutate into some Horrendous Killer Plague than any other microorganism?
Not good for CF sufferers, but presumably all kinds of other not-generally-oh-my-god microorganisms are bad news for them as well.
On the other hand, the monstrofungosity [probably cancer-causing, too, I remember some black fungus being rather carcinogenic] must have exchanged survivability in extreme environments against something else, opening up an Achilles' hell, or rather a Siegfried's dragon scale.
Just need to find out what it is.
Why abandon it? Leave it out the front of your house to scare away unwanted energy salesman and other types. With the added Kudos of having more white good out front! (I'm writing this from Norwich BTW)
What's the point of a dishwasher anyway? You have to rinse everything beforehand in case a rogue piece of sweetcorn clogs up the works and everything comes out with the dirt finely mashed up and baked onto the plates. Far easier to to "wash up" -- if you remember how we used to do it back in the day.
Is it Friday BTW?
This follows on from the earlier article about networked appliances. It clearly demonstrates that we cannot trust our white goods to get social. To think that my dishwasher may contract the equivalent of an S.T.D. after a rough session with the glass-washer at the local pub just cheapens the whole idea.
But, if people still insist on confusing a dishwasher with a waste-disposal unit in a sink then what do you expect - I have seen some very, very manky dishwashers, fridges, washing machines in the past and it's all due to lazy bastards. When the bacteria in the dishwasher has more intelligence than the human and works its way in to the processor to communicate with other like-minded bacteria we is fucked.
At this point in time it's worth remembering that the most successful life form on the planet is not human.
Test 2 dishwashers in the UK and find one contaminated and it's the end of the world!
Either that or the the test lab in Slovenia is contaminated.
Seriously getting rid of the black stains off the rubber seal on a washing machine is no easy job.
That's also why we now always get black keyboards at work.
99% ... is a good driver for microbial evolution. The 1% that survives, will become 2% two hours later, and re-fill the ecosystem after another 12 hours or thereabouts. And they'll be resistant to whatever you did to their grand^6 parents.
You can breed bugs to eat almost anything this way. Culture some soil bacteria. Add enough dioxin (or other environmental contaminant) to kill most of them. Culture the survivors. Add a bigger dose of dioxin. Repeat until they pretty much thrive on neat dioxin (and possibly can't survive without it). Culture a large batch, and spray it onto your contaminated site. Leave for a year. Contamination gone.
The Gulf of Mexico long ago bred crude-oil-eating microbes, because of the high level of natural oil seepage there. Lucky for BP.
Bacteria are nature's clean-up crews. Without them, higher-level life would have choked itself to extinction with its own by-products, many times over.
Just don't teach them to eat plastic, or rubber, or petrol. Or to think.
You should see the stuff growing in my sink. If it were only black goo, I'd feel better, but some of it is grey, some green, but no tartan. When they start investigating the plague that wiped out the human race, they'll probably end up in my kitchen.
Anonymous just in case I ever decide to have a social life again.
Just leave the dishwasher door open; they have lovely flowers. They like to be taken care of. We must water them daily. Don't use the hot dry cycle; we don't like it. Please understand us; we mean you know harm. We just want to live among you. You brought this upon yourselves.
Thank you for taking Lewis off the decaf! It's been a long time since we've had him in full Apocalyptic mode and I, for one, can't get enough! Don't get me wrong, I enjoy all of his articles, but seeing him unleash his full powers rocks.
Oh and I hand wash my dishes (within 48 hours or so...) so nyah nyah nyah!
Having worked in more than a few pubs in my time, I think this problem will affect more than 1 or 2 Register readers.
In fact, any one who has Ice in their drinks, or has beer from a pump or tap.
I've found a fungus in many ice makers, check to see if there are black spots in your ice - and No, I am not joking.
Also, the pipes delivering your beer from the barrel or keg should be cleaned each week using a recommended chemicals, plus there should be, as in the best bars, a wash with clean water after every barrel change.
The yeast from the beer can mutate into interesting variations if left un-attended, and can lead to victims calling on the Great God Huey on the Cosmic Telephone.
A pub with a regular cleaning regime is a good pub - they will probably look after the beer better as well. Ask the bar person when was the last time the pipes were cleaned - if they don't know, drink elsewhere.
Personally speaking, I prefer my beer to pass through my kidneys and not pass my tonsils on a return journey.